#tristan13

[orlaithrose]

when: 21st december where: treaty towers who: @walledupward​

Last year, Orlaith had got herself a cupcake and stuck one candle in it, trying at least for some semblance of celebration. This year she didn’t bother. She couldn’t be bothered, depressingly, a stark contrast to the way she always tried for a positive spin. What had made it so much harder this year, she wondered, as she stopped outside her door, a plastic bag with water and a fish in one hand, instead of the aforementioned cupcake, and attempted to fish - ha! - out of her keys from her pocket? Her phone in the other hand made it tricky. 

Maybe it was the years stacking up on each other, weighing upon her, and making it hard to keep her shoulders up. Maybe it was how teasingly close she thought she was to the answer she had been so desperately seeking for so long; it seemed unfair it felt so close, and yet was still out of reach, not here in time for her birthday or the holidays. Either way, the cupcake had felt too sad. The fish wasn’t much better, an even more depressing reminder that she’d given in and gone to the circus for the first time, forgoing on her promise to wait for her mother so that she could revel in her misery and justify it somehow. It had been really good, which only made her feel worse now. It had worked how she’d intended but in the long run hadn’t been worth it. 

Wedging her phone under her chin to free a hand was another mistake— as she wriggled a hand in the tight pocket of her jeans, Orlaith’s chin lost its grip and the phone went crashing to the floor. She could see without even crouching down the screen was smashed, cracks running out like a spiderweb from a spot in the bottom corner. It could have been worse, she supposed; it could have been the fish she’d dropped and then she’d have killed it, a mere hour after she’d won it. Still, she leant her head against her door and sighed, “For fuck’s sake,” leaving the wrecked phone on the floor where it had fallen.